400 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



ringing or decortication of branches, for the purpose of 

 accelerating maturation or improving the fruit. Every year 

 the saw takes off a third, a half, and sometimes more, of a 

 living tree ; and the effect is to produce new shoots, not 

 death. Is an operation which can be safely performed by 

 man, deadly when performed by an insect ? Dr. Masher 

 did not detect the insects without extreme search, and then 

 only in colonies, on healthy branches. Do whole trees 

 wither in a day by the mere suction of such insects ? Had 

 they been supposed to poison the fluids, the theory would 

 be less exceptionable, since poisons in minute quantities 

 may be very malignant. 



While we admit a limited mischief of insects, they can 

 never be the cause of the prevalent blight of the middle 

 and western States such a blight as prevailed in and 

 around Cincinnati in the summer of 1844 nor of that 

 blight which prevailed in 1832. The blight-beetle, after 

 most careful search and dissection, has not been found, nor 

 any trace or passage of it. Dr. Mosher s insect may be set 

 aside without further remark. 



I think that further observation will confirm the follow 

 ing conclusions : 



1. Insects are frequently found feeding in various ways 

 upon blighted trees, or on trees which afterward become so. 



2. Trees are fatally blighted on which no insects are dis 

 cerned feeding neither aphides nor scoly tus pyri. 



3. Multitudes of trees have such insects on them as are 

 in other cases supposed to cause the blight, without a sign 

 of blight following. This has been the case in our own 

 garden. 



III. CAUSE OF THE BLIGHT. The Indiana Horticultural 

 Society, early in the summer of 1844, appointed a committee 

 to collect and investigate facts on the Fire-Blight. While 

 serving on this committee, and inquiring in all the pear- 

 growing regions, we learned that Reuben Reagan, of Putnam 

 County, Ind., was in possession of much information, and 



